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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Tactical retreat: Ultras absent from protests in Egypt and Turkey

Militant, highly politicized soccer fans who played key
roles in the toppling of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, opposition to post-Mubarak
military rule, and last month’s mass protests against Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been as organizations conspicuously absent from the
dramatic scenes in Cairo with the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi and
ongoing smaller scale protests in Istanbul.

While endorsing participation of their members in ongoing protests
in both countries, violence-prone, militant soccer fans known as ultras in
Egypt and Turkey have retreated to their traditional public stance that they
are not political organizations but do not stop their followers from engaging
politically. It is a position designed to minimize their vulnerability as
groups and shield them from being politically buttonholed.

Egyptian ultras, one of the country’s largest civic groups,
adopted that position on the eve of 18 days of mass protests in 2011 on Cairo’s
Tahrir Square that forced Mubarak to resign after 30 years in office. At the
same time, leaders privately encouraged their members to play the key role they
did in the president’s overthrow.

The past week’s events in Egypt form a dilemma for the
ultras whose members populate the full spectrum of politics in the country. The
ultras have a deep-seated distrust of the military and the security forces who
have re-emerged in full strength as a result of the anti-Morsi protests. By the
same token, many ultras oppose Morsi because of his perceived attempt to
undermine the goals of Egypt’s popular revolt and his failure to reform the
security sector.

Like in Egypt, rival fan groups united in Turkey last month
to protect protesters and add their voice to the opposition against Mr.
Erdogan. But in contrast to the Egyptians, they publicly declared their united
stand as organizations under the banner ‘Istanbul United.’

Nevertheless, the tactical retreat and renewed seemingly
exclusive organizational focus on soccer of fan groups in Egypt and Turkey
follows incidents in both countries ostensibly designed to intimidate the fans
and curb their activism.

More than 70 militant supporters of crowned Cairo club Al
Ahli SC were killed in February last year in a politically loaded soccer brawl
in the Suez Canal city of Port Said that
many believe was an effort that got out of hand to punish the ultras for their
opposition to and vicious clashes with the police. The ultras have since then
staged Port Said-related protests and stormed stadiums because of a ban on
spectators attending matches.

The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) this week cancelled
the soccer season because of the post-Morsi political volatility. It had
earlier suspended the league because of security concerns.

Much like the Egyptian ultras, spokesmen for Carsi, the powerful,
popular militant soccer support group of Istanbul’s Besiktas JK, say they are
lying low since 20 of its members were charged with being part of an illegal organization
in the wake of last month’s Gezi Park protests.

As a result, Carsi denies any relationship to nightly Hyde
Park style gatherings in the Istanbul neighborhood of Besiktas’s Abbasaga Park,
one of multiple such public forums being held across the city. Nonetheless, Carsi
members dressed in their club's black and white often moderate the Abbasaga discussions
and performances organized to discuss the future of the protest movement,
exchange news and listen to music.

The charges against Carsi reflect Mr. Erdogan's attempts to criminalize
the fans and the protesters in a bid to cater to a traditionalist and
conservative base and distinguish himself from the more modernist façade of his
Islamist rival, Fethullalh Gulen, a powerful, self-exiled, 76-year old imam
with a strong popular and media base and influence in state institutions like
the police and the judiciary.

Mr. Gulen, shared Mr. Erdogan's criticism of the protesters
and blaming of international media but in contrast to the prime minister
quickly backed away from denouncing them as vandals and foreign agents. Instead
he urged his followers not to underestimate the grievance underlying the protests
and to accept that his movement as well as the government had not done enough
to resolve social problems. At the same time, he sought to drive a wedge
between the protesters by praising the original peaceful environmentalists demonstrating
against the cutting down of trees in Taksim's Gezi Park as opposed to violent protesters,
a reference to the soccer fans.

Carsi’s decision to bide its time did not stop small groups
of fans of rival clubs from joining a demonstration in late June by some 20,000
fans of Fenerbahce who were protesting against the allegedly politically
motivated allegations of match fixing. The protest demanded the resignation of
Mr. Erdogan and denounced Galatasary for its alleged involvement in one
characteristic of the match-fixing scandal: a struggle for control of
Fenerbahce, Turkish soccer soccer's most prized political asset, between Mr.
Erdogan and Mr. Gulen.

The protest came days after European soccer body UEFA banned
Fenerbahce alongside rival Besiktas from competing in European championships as
a result of match-fixing allegations. Both clubs are appealing the decision.

In contrast to a protest 24 hours earlier on Istanbul’s Taksim
Square against Mr. Erdogan's haughtiness, grandiose urban plans for Istanbul
and perceived attempts to Islamize Turkish society which confronted a large
police force at the ready, security forces were nowhere to be seen during the
Fenerbahce march down Bagdat Caddesi, the high-end shopping throughway on
Istanbul's Asian side. A day earlier police armed with tear and pepper gas and
backed up by a water cannon occupied Taksim and surrounded protesters seeking
to enter the square.

Less visible was a second contrast between the two Istanbul
protests: while Fenerbahce fans protested under their group and club’s banners
Carsi as a group has refused in recent weeks to participate in regular demonstrations
on Taksim square.

"The Gezi Park demonstrations have shown that rival
soccer fans can work together. The demonstrations have put Erdogan on notice.
But that's not all. They also send a message to Gulen," said one soccer
fan.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore,
co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg, and
the author of the blog, The
Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile